On Tue, 19 Apr 1994 redionysus@xxxxxxx wrote:
> What are MOOs anyway?
>
> I would like to say, though I'm sure it's evident. I am not sure that
> combinatory machines are rhizomes or vice versa. I am much more interested in
> the combinatory machine than the rhizome as a model.
> Maybe this can be used in some ways to describe the news-list. As combinatory
> but not necessarily rhizomatic? Then again, I am not, as of yet that
> interested in the structure of the internet as metaphorical/resistant etc. I
> am more interested in actually how it serves me as a tool, and questions of
> who has access to it and who controls it. I realize they may be linked, but I
> am sceptical that technology determines the social form. (Raymond Williams,
> again, *Television*)
>
But I thought technology always determined the social form. Witness the
effect of the cotton gin on the social structure of the American South,
or the effect of freeways on the social life/space of Southern
Californians (I live in the midst of this bizarrely fragmented
dystopia--where peoples' subjectivities are formed by the environment as
if they had been poured into moulds). It seems to me that the idea of
mastering our technologies and simply "putting them to use as tools" is
almost unthinkable (though the ways in which they put **us** to use
generally remains unthought as well). Now one might have a societal
debate on the role of technology and its effect on social forms (should
we replace the classroom with cyberinterfaces, for instance), but this
should not be confused with simply choosing various technological
conveniences to support a preexisting, autonomous social form.
Dan
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